This equipment is, for example, in the form of electronic boxes situated under the seats or in the ceilings of an aircraft cabin. These boxes are particularly elements of on-demand audiovisual entertainment systems (films, interactive games, etc.) and of systems allowing access to Internet services and to flight-related services (display of the flight conditions on demand, etc.) made available to the passengers.
This equipment features an ever increasing number of functions and has an ever increasing number of electronic components and/or more powerful components to provide these functions. It therefore tends to dissipate more heat.
It happens to be the case that an aircraft cabin is air-conditioned but not ventilated, that is to say that it does not benefit from forced-air pipes. The problem thus arises of cooling this equipment.
A first solution consists in using natural convection and heat dissipation by way of the seats or the ceilings when the installation allows. However, this technique entails the risk of the air inlets being obstructed and allows only a small quantity of heat to be dissipated.
When the power is high, the boxes are equipped with fans, generally two fans for reasons of reliability. This increases the cost to manufacture the box. This creates maintenance problems, which increase with the number of seats: in the not-too-distant future, some aircraft will be equipped with 800 seats, which will represent 1600 fans to be maintained. Moreover, these fans entail the risk of obstruction and may inconvenience the passengers facing the air outlets. Finally, fans are noisy pieces of equipment.
A key object of the invention is therefore to cool electronic equipment situated, for example, in a non-ventilated area by using a solution which does not have the disadvantages mentioned above.